Abstract

This study is conducted to describe the students’ ability of using transition signals as sentence connectors in paragraph. By knowing the students’ ability of using transition signals as sentence connectors in paragraph, it is expected that the teacher and the students can get a feedback to improve their skill in writing especially in the use of transition signals as sentence connectors in
paragraph. In this study, descriptive quantitative research was used to obtain the data related to the students’
ability of using transition signals as sentence connectors in paragraph. The research subject of this study was the fourth semester students of the 2005/2006 academic year of English Department of Muhammadiyah University of Malang. The instrument used to collect the data was test. To get the data, the students were given short paragraphs with the blanks that had to be filled with appropriate transition signals. Finally, after the answer’s sheet collected, each mistake made by students was identified and the test was scored. The result of the study shows that in average the students’ ability of using transition signals as
sentence connectors in paragraph is moderate, with the mean score of 68.5. The students’ moderate achievement in using transition signals as sentence connectors in paragraph is probably due to several factors. First, the process of teaching and learning in the writing class has not been
running well since one class consisted of twenty-two students it might be caused the crawded class, the facility was not supported (for example, the book) since there were students who have book and students who have not. Second, the students might not be able to understand the
materials explained by the teacher. Third, the students did not have high motivation to learn sentence connectors. Last of all, the students seldom read the English texts, such as English newspapers, magazines, and internet article since they can help students understand the use of transition signals as sentence connectors in paragraph.